Aural Style Sheets
Aural style sheets use a combination of speech synthesis and sound effects to make the user listen to information, instead of reading information.
Aural presentation can be used:
- by blind people
- to help users learning to read
- to help users who have reading problems
- for home entertainment
- in the car
- by print-impaired communities
The aural presentation converts the document to plain text and feed this to a screen reader (a program that reads all the characters on the screen).
An example of an Aural style sheet:
h1, h2, h3, h4
{
voice-family: male;
richness: 80;
cue-before: url("beep.au")
}
The example above will make the speech synthesizer play a sound, then speak the headers in a very rich male voice.
CSS Aural Reference
The "CSS" column indicates in which CSS version the property is defined (CSS1 or CSS2).
| Property | Description | Values | CSS |
|---|---|---|---|
| azimuth | Sets where the sound should come from | angle left-side far-left left center-left center center-right right far-right right-side behind leftwards rightwards |
2 |
| cue | Sets the cue properties in one declaration | cue-before cue-after |
2 |
| cue-after | Specifies a sound to be played after speaking an element's content | none url |
2 |
| cue-before | Specifies a sound to be played before speaking an element's content | none url |
2 |
| elevation | Sets where the sound should come from | angle below level above higher lower |
2 |
| pause | Sets the pause properties in one declaration | pause-before pause-after |
2 |
| pause-after | Specifies a pause after speaking an element's content | time % |
2 |
| pause-before | Specifies a pause before speaking an element's content | time % |
2 |
| pitch | Specifies the speaking voice | frequency x-low low medium high x-high |
2 |
| pitch-range | Specifies the variation in the speaking voice. (Monotone voice or animated voice?) | number | 2 |
| play-during | Specifies a sound to be played while speaking an element's content | auto none url mix repeat |
2 |
| richness | Specifies the richness of the speaking voice. (Rich voice or thin voice?) | number | 2 |
| speak | Specifies whether content will render aurally | normal none spell-out |
2 |
| speak-header | Specifies how to handle table headers. Should the headers be spoken before every cell, or only before a cell with a different header than the previous cell | always once |
2 |
| speak-numeral | Specifies how to speak numbers | digits continuous |
2 |
| speak-punctuation | Specifies how to speak punctuation characters | none code |
2 |
| speech-rate | Specifies the speed of the speaking | number x-slow slow medium fast x-fast faster slower |
2 |
| stress | Specifies the "stress" in the speaking voice | number | 2 |
| voice-family | Specifies the voice family of the speaking | specific-voice generic-voice |
2 |
| volume | Specifies the volume of the speaking | number % silent x-soft soft medium loud x-loud |
2 |